


With(out) consequences

by honeywolf



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Costume Party, M/M, Secret Identity, Teen Crush, bi panic, masks (but the fun kind), mentions of biphobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-17
Updated: 2021-02-17
Packaged: 2021-03-12 11:16:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29508882
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/honeywolf/pseuds/honeywolf
Summary: “What’s your name, anyway?” Dean asks him, but the man shakes his head.“Does it matter?” he asks. “I’m beginning to like this. The masks, the mystery.”Dean is almost sure that the man’s eyes are blue behind the black mask, but he is soon distracted by the beer bottle resting on Lone Ranger’s bottom lip.“I… I don’t know. Aren’t you curious?” he says weakly, after a pause that was entirely too long.“I’m curious about a lot of things,” the guy answers. “But a name isn’t important, is it?”
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester, Dorothy Baum/Charlie Bradbury (background), Lisa Braeden/Dean Winchester (past)
Comments: 10
Kudos: 67
Collections: Profound Bond Gift Exchange: Reunion





	With(out) consequences

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Marsajar](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marsajar/gifts).



> It's finally done! 
> 
> This is for this year's PB Exchange, I really hope you like it, Marsajar!
> 
> A huge thank you goes out to my beta readers [theimportanceofbeingvictoria](https://archiveofourown.org/users/theimportanceofbeingvictoria) and [tfw_cas](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tfw_cas).

“Wow, creative,” Charlie says when she opens the door. She looks Dean over with an arched brow until Dean almost feels the need to wrap the silly cape of the costume he’s wearing around himself. There is loud music coming from inside the small house, and Charlie’s pink cheeks indicate that she isn’t quite sober anymore.

“I mean,” Charlie continues, “you didn’t even fully commit. Where are your fake abs?” She pokes his stomach curiously with a broad smile.

“I already have abs, I don’t need a styrofoam six-pack,” Dean tells her and sticks his tongue out. “Besides, Batman is  _ awesome _ .” 

“He is,” Charlie says, her smile more genuine now. “I’m really glad you’re here, D.” 

She practically tackles him, wrapping her hands around his neck and her legs around his hips, and if this wasn’t her usual way of greeting him, he would have probably lost his balance. 

“Me too, Charles, me too,” he mumbles. The last couple of weeks have been a bit rough - between a breakup with his girlfriend Lisa, moving out of the apartment they shared for the last five years and some personal stuff he had to work out, he hasn’t been in the best of moods, but it’s slowly getting better again.

“Anyway, who are  _ you _ supposed to be?” he asks Charlie with a wink as she entangles herself from him again - she’s wearing a tan shirt and a black vest with jeans and knee high boots. Before Charlie can answer, the door opens behind her and Dorothy, Charlie’s girlfriend, slips through, her hair in buns and looking uncharacteristically feminine with her flowing, white, tunic-like dress. 

“Wouldn’t have taken you for the princess type,” Dean says, grinning at Dorothy in her Princess Leia outfit and earning a chuckle and an eye roll from Dorothy.

“She only agreed to be Leia because she wanted to see me with a holster,” Charlie pipes in and they turn back to the door, hand in hand and Dean follows them inside.

Dean isn’t exactly in the mood for a party, but his brother Sam, whose apartment he’s crashing at at the moment, practically begged him to give him and his girlfriend some space, and Charlie has told him more than once that socializing will be good for him. 

The living room is loud and packed with people, as is usual at Charlie’s parties - something that hasn’t really changed within the last couple of years. Charlie is a stereotypical, Dungeons-and-Dragons-playing, book-loving nerd, who probably spends more time online than offline, but she makes friends easily. She’s been Dean’s friend for almost a decade now, and her costume parties happen a few times a year, but still there are only a few people he recognizes. 

There are a few familiar faces - Garth, an ex colleague, and Benny, who he went to school with, but none of them seem to recognize him with the Batman mask on as he walks by them. Dean is almost glad about it. Almost nobody knows that he and Lisa broke up and it’s a conversation Dean isn’t ready to have, although he keeps telling himself that it’s not a big deal, that his friends would understand. So although his face is hot under the cheap plastic of the mask, he keeps it on when he squeezes past people on the way into the kitchen for something to drink. 

There’s a man in a big cowboy hat in front of the open fridge. He has a bottle of Texas Star in his hand which he eyes suspiciously (at least Dean imagines suspicion in his eyes, since there is a black mask covering half his face). 

“I wouldn’t drink that,” Dean tells the man, who turns around to him, clearly startled. 

Dean has no clue who the man is supposed to be, but he looks breathtaking in a loose shirt with its sleeves cut off and tight fitting dark jeans that accentuate his strong thighs. He averts his eyes - there’s a feeling of wrongness he has to actively swallow down that comes at the realization that he finds the man attractive. It’s still new to him, admitting to himself that he likes men. And, more importantly, that it’s okay for him to do so.

“I-I wouldn’t drink that,” Dean says again, “Tastes like cat piss. Take the other one.” 

The man nods, puts the Texas Star back into the fridge and takes out two bottles of Margiekugel’s, only to pass one of them to Dean. 

Dean nods and grins, and for a moment, they both stand next to each other, watching the party through the door. Dean isn’t exactly eager to go back into the living room and neither seems the masked man next to him. 

“Thank you,” the man says, after having taken a swig from the beer, and his voice is surprisingly dark, “it’s good.” He pauses, and adds, almost as an afterthought, “Well, for beer, at least.”

Dean huffs. “It’s  _ great _ you mean, Clayton Moore.”

“I’m not-” the man starts, but then he shrugs. “Who is Clayton Moore?”

“The Lone Ranger? Ever heard of him?” Dean asks. 

“I’m afraid I haven’t,” the man says with a shrug.

“So, who else are you supposed to be?”

The man takes another sip from his beer. He stares at it for a moment and starts peeling off the label almost absent-mindedly.

“I don’t know. Charlie talked me around into coming to her party last minute and I threw on whatever I could find,” he mutters. 

“So I’m not the only one Charlie pressured into coming here?”

The guy grins. His hat covers most of his face in shadows, but Dean can nevertheless see the corner of his mouth lift to a lopsided smile. 

“She wants to play matchmaker. Apparently I’m ‘too pretty to be single’ or something.” Dean tries not to laugh as the man makes honest to god air quotes, but still Dean feels his cheeks grow hot.

_ She’s right _ , Dean thinks, but he doesn’t say it. He allows himself to take in the man’s - Dean decides to call him Lone Ranger anyway - muscular arms for a moment, tattoos peeking out from under the jacket, wrapping around his shoulders and biceps - wings, Dean thinks, but he turns his head again as if to look into the living room.

“Good luck with that, man. Most of the girls that Charlie is friends with are on the gay end of the Kinsey scale,” Dean mutters. 

“Good thing that I’m on the gay end of the Kinsey scale as well, then,” the man tells him, matter-of-factly. “Charlie knows this. But it doesn’t make the prospect of her trying to set me up with someone any better.” 

“That’s why you’re in here and not out there? Are you trying to hide?” Dean asks. 

He is actively trying to ignore the information the handsome stranger just provided him with. The whole being bisexual thing isn’t easy. For now, admitting to himself that dudes can be hot sometimes gives him enough anxiety as is, so the idea of actually flirting? No way. Anyway, this is one of Charlie’s friends, he definitely won’t make a fool out of himself in front of somebody he might meet again. 

“You got me,” the guy mutters. “I doubt I’d find my future love interest at a party. Loud music and drunk people dancing around me make me way too uneasy to concentrate on getting to know another person.” 

He presses against the kitchen counter as a girl with wild, dark curls makes her way past them to the fridge and pulls out a couple of bottles of some bright, artificially colored  _ something _ . 

“What about you? Why are you hiding out here?” 

Dean swallows and looks at his feet. “My relationship ended a few weeks ago and I know way too many people out there, who might ask me about it,” he says. 

The guy looks at him for a moment as if he wants to ask him something - Dean knows that it’s pretty obvious that there’s more to the story - but then he just shrugs and looks back at his beer bottle, the label already pulled off almost completely.

“Oh, I see,” Lone Ranger says. Dean watches the guy take another sip from his beer and this time, the man catches his glance and Dean earns a quick smirk. There is something familiar about this guy, but Dean can’t put a finger on it. He’s pretty sure he’s never heard his voice before, but there’s something about his gestures, about his little half smiles. 

“What’s your name, anyway?” Dean asks him, but the man shakes his head.

“Does it matter?” he asks. “I’m beginning to like this. The masks, the  _ mystery _ .” Dean is almost sure that the man’s eyes are blue behind the black mask, but he is soon distracted by the beer bottle resting on Lone Ranger’s bottom lip.

“I… I don’t know. Aren’t you curious?” he says weakly, after a pause that was entirely too long.

“I’m curious about a lot of things,” the guy answers. “But a name isn’t important, is it?”

Dean opens his mouth, but before he can formulate an answer, Lone Ranger goes on. 

“Tell me who you are and you get my name.” He manages to make it sound almost irresistible, a deal Dean can’t reject.

“I’m thirty years old and I work at-,” he starts, but Lone Ranger shakes his head.

“No, I meant, tell me  _ who you are _ . Tell me what makes you the person you are.”

“I’m-” Dean starts.  _ Not that interesting _ , comes to his mind, but he doubts that Lone Ranger would accept this as an answer. 

They are interrupted by two people, gesticulating wildly while they attempt to cram themselves into the small space in front of the refrigerator. 

“And then she showed me a picture of her ex and I realized that her apartment was full of pictures of the two of them together. And so I asked her if they were still friends and she told me they hadn’t spoken in a year,” a girl with a bright blue wig and a nose piercing tells her friend as she almost steps on Dean’s toes, and to Dean’s dismay the two don’t seem to plan on leaving the kitchen any time soon. 

Lone Ranger scoots closer until he is all crowded up in Dean’s personal space and his breath hits Dean’s cheek. His eyes are definitely blue and they sparkle dangerously behind the mask.

“How about we find someplace else to talk?”, he whispers into Dean’s ear.

It’s an earnest question, Dean knows this, but still, the man’s voice is dark and rough and he is so close that Dean can feel stubble grazing against his earlobe, so he momentarily forgets how to breathe. He wonders how other words would sound like out of this man’s mouth, but he quickly shoves the thought into the back of his mind. 

“Yeah. Yeah, let’s find someplace else,” he stammers instead, equally relieved and disappointed when Lone Ranger stops invading his personal space and makes his way toward the living room. 

\--

The air is still warm when they step outside into the tiny backyard. It’s rather bare - a small stretch of grass, a tree, a canopy swing - but Charlie and Dorothy put up twinkle lights and Dean has to admit that the warm golden glow looks almost magical.

“Better?” Dean asks and eyes the canopy swing - an old fashioned, creaky thing, but he and Charlie have spent many evenings on it talking and smoking too much weed.

Lone Ranger nods and follows Dean’s gaze, but Dean decides to sit down on the steps that lead into the backyard instead. The canopy swing isn’t exactly big and the idea of soft cushions and sitting too close to this stunning man is too much for him. He scoots to one side of the steps and the man follows his lead and sits down on the other side, lifting his head.

“Without light pollution, we’d be able to see around 2,500 stars right now,” Lone Ranger tells him suddenly, his eyes fixated on the sky. He tilts his head back until his hat falls down behind him and reveals messy, dark hair, cropped short on the sides and tousled on top.

“Huh,” Dean says. He never really paid much attention to stars. Apart from the big dipper there isn’t any constellation he can find in the night sky anyway. 

“Have you ever been anywhere where there was no light pollution?” the guy asks him. “Seen the milky way?”

“Not that I know of. You?”

The guy nods. “A few times. I’ve been to national parks in the US and in Europe and there was this one time in New Zealand…” he stops. “Anyway. I wanted to get to know  _ you _ , not talk about myself,” he adds with a slight grin. 

“I’ve never been outside of the US,” Dean admits. “Grew up poor and vacations were never really in it for us. I guess I could afford it now, but… I never really thought about it. That it’s something I could do.”

“Tell me about your childhood,” Lone Ranger says, and Dean realizes how close they’re sitting. The steps are narrow enough that the sides of their feet touch. Dean could, of course, move, but despite how fast his heart is beating, he can’t bring himself to. Instead, he takes a swig from his beer, which he somehow almost forgot.

“You don’t have to,” the guy says. “If it’s something you’d rather not talk about, I can ask you another question.”

Dean shakes his head. He doesn’t quite know how to start - his childhood isn’t really something he talks about all that often.

“Well, uhm. My mom died when I was a little kid and my brother was only a few months old. A house fire. My dad kinda lost his mind for a while, thought somebody was behind the fire. He started drinking and following leads and for a while we practically lived in our car until it was time for me to go to school. From then on, we lived with one of his friends, which was probably the best thing Dad could have ever done for us. He still showed up every once in a while though, even stayed with us for a year or so when I finished high school, but eventually he remarried and now lives with his new wife and son in Minnesota.” 

Dean pauses. Most of his friends don’t know much about his family history. He still remembers back in high school, when he told people that he and his brother only lived with their uncle Bobby because Dad traveled around a lot for his job and to this day. Charlie is the only one who knows about his early childhood in run-down motel rooms, holding little Sammy close and telling him everything would be fine.

“I’m - ” Lone Ranger starts but Dean shakes his head. He’s heard his fair share of ‘I’m sorry’s, he doesn’t need another one.

“What do you say, an answer for an answer?” he asks.

Lone Ranger nods, the corners of his mouth lifting up to a small smile as he replies “I would like that.”

“Okay then,” Dean mumbles and he takes a swig of his beer as he thinks of a question. 

“Do you have siblings?”

“I’m the youngest of five,” Lone Ranger tells him. “Three brothers and a sister. Do you have any strong opinions on something rather trivial?”

Dean laughs. “Pie,” he says. “I think pie is superior to cake,” he says, and when the guy tilts his head skeptically, he adds, “And anyone who doesn’t think it’s true is wrong.” 

Lone Ranger laughs out loud at this and Dean is pretty sure it wasn’t that funny, but all of a sudden there is a hand on his knee. The guy doesn’t leave it there for long, but he gives Dean’s knee a short squeeze before he pulls his hand back again and Dean almost misses the touch.

“Uhm, what do you do for work?” he asks when he realizes that he has been staring at his knee for too long.

“I’m working on my PhD in Gender Studies”, Lone Ranger tells him and looks up to the sky. “My mother still thinks it’s to spite her. Not only did I turn out gay, I don’t even have a respectable job she can brag about.” He laughs again, but this time it’s bitter. “This brings me to my next question though. Are you the person your parents - your father - wanted you to be?”

Dean swallows. Lone Ranger is good at this game, he realizes. He hit the mark with this question. 

“I-” he starts but he finds that he somehow lost the ability to form words. Truth is, on the surface Dean is everything his Dad wanted him to be. He was always there for Sammy, just like Dad wanted, he became a mechanic, just like him. He’s like a carbon copy of his father - the jokes, the mannerisms, a ladies man. Only that he isn’t.  _ Quit lying to yourself, Dean _ , Lisa even told him, as if it’s so easy. As if accepting his true self isn’t something he has been fighting with for most of his life. 

_ Quit lying to yourself.  _

He’s been lying to himself since highschool, though. Since Castiel. It was more than once that Dean thought about it, about just leaning in, kissing his best friend, about how this kiss would taste, how Castiel’s long, slender fingers would feel in Dean’s hair. He was too much of a coward to act upon it, though, and so for months, there was a sense of curiosity buzzing underneath Dean’s fingertips. It was terrifying and exciting, until Dean’s cowardice won and crushed their friendship.

Lone Ranger looks at him with endless patience and a tilted head that reminds Dean of Castiel, who used to stare at him with squinted eyes and an expression too serious for a highschool kid. For a fleeting moment he wonders if it’s Cas underneath the cowboy hat and the mask, but it couldn’t be. The Castiel Dean remembers was small and slender. The man opposite of him is almost the same height as Dean, thighs that look like they could function as a murder weapon and a voice like sandpaper. He’s nothing like the kid whose heart he broke all those years ago, but when Dean opens his mouth to answer Lone Ranger’s question, Castiel is still on his mind.

“No, I’m not at all the person my Dad wanted me to be. I’m -” 

“There you are!”

Charlie opens the sliding door and slips through, her hair almost glowing red even in the dim light. She crouches down and grabs Dean’s shoulders for balance.

“Hey, Charles,” Dean says. “Missed me?”

“I was looking for you. I didn’t want you to end up sulking in some corner.” She turns around to Lone Ranger. “And you! I promised to introduce you to some people.” Charlie grins, her eyes wide, as she starts giggling. “But it seems you’ve taken care of it yourself.” She winks at them and ignores Dean who is shaking his head.

“Hey, uhm, do you want another beer? I could use one. Yeah, you know what, Charlie, why don’t you come with me?” Dean starts rambling and gets up. He can’t bring himself to look at Lone Ranger, so instead he takes Charlie’s hand and tugs at her arm until she follows him inside.

“Hey.”

Dean turns around and sees that the man stood up as well. He hands Dean his empty beer bottle and their fingers touch as Dean takes it. 

“Come back,” Lone Ranger says, his voice nothing more than a whisper. He doesn’t let go of the bottle and Dean is almost sure that actual sparks are about to fly where their skin touches.

“Y-yeah,” Dean replies and almost drops the bottle when Lone Ranger lets go of it. It takes him another moment to turn around to Charlie, but although the room is dark and Lone Ranger is still illuminated by the night sky behind him, Dean thinks he can see a soft smile on the man’s lips. 

The moment is over when Charlie drags him inside to the living room and Dean finds himself in a cluster of people in costumes.

“What’s the matter with you?” Charlie asks him as soon as they round the corner. She nudges him and looks up with huge, sincere eyes. Out here in the light it’s even more apparent that Charlie had more than enough to drink and Dean feels entirely too sober for this conversation.

“I don’t think I’m ready for this,” he tells her and he feels his cheeks heat up with embarrassment. He’s a grown man, why is this so difficult for him? Charlie hugs him - or rather she throws his arms around him so that they both almost lose balance.

“Ready for what?” Charlie asks but after a second a grin forms on her lips. 

“Ah, I see. You like him,” she says, pointing her finger on Dean.

“I think he’s my-” he starts, then whispers “My type?”

“Honestly? I was hoping you’d be into him. I-” she says but he smacks his hand on her mouth to keep her from going on.

“Don’t say his name!” he hurries to explain.

“Why?”

“We’re… playing a kind of game? He suggested we ask each other questions. Said he wanted to get to know me or something.”

“That’s so cute!” Charlie swoons. She looks at Dean with a wide grin but hugs him tightly when she sees his concerned look.

“Whatever you decide on doing tonight, remember that I’m proud of yourself, okay?”

He nods. Charlie opens her mouth to say something else but Dorothy shows up and kisses Charlie’s cheek and Dean uses the distraction to slip away and into the kitchen. 

There are way too many people inside the small room and Dean presses against the wall. Breathing takes more effort and he feels lightheaded, with his heart racing. He could just leave, he thinks. Nobody really expected him to stay for long anyway. He could call it a night. Go home. But then he thinks of Lone Ranger, his hand on Dean’s knee, his deep, rough voice. He’s waiting for him.

He’s waiting for him and Dean is terrified but nevertheless, when he finally opens the fridge, he grabs two bottles of Margiekugel’s and heads back to the back door. The door is still ajar, but when he steps outside, the man is gone. There is movement in the edge of his vision though, and when he turns his head he finds Lone Ranger sitting on the canopy swing. He is still wearing his mask, but the hat is next to him and his hair is sticking up in many directions. 

He looks up, a soft smile on his lips. “You’re back,” he says, half in wonder.

Dean nods and hands him the beer. 

“Sorry, there was a line in front of the fridge,” he tells him, acutely aware that there is a handsome man in front of him. He doesn’t know what to do with the hand that isn’t holding the beer bottle and finally settles on scratching his neck.

“You can sit down if you want to,” Lone Ranger tells him. “It’s more comfortable than concrete steps.”

Dean grins at that and sits down on the corner of the swing, carefully leaving space between him and the man. The air is different all of a sudden, heavy and almost impenetrable and the cowboy hat that lies between them at the same time feels like a safeguard and an obstacle. Dean feels the man’s eyes on him while he stares straight ahead.

He has the urge to turn around, to look at Lone Ranger’s masked face, but what if he does? What if Charlie’s right and the guy  _ is  _ into him?

He’s pretty sure he isn’t ready but at this rate, will he ever be? 

Is it a matter of slowly working towards something or should he rather just jump in at the deep end?

“It’s your turn, by the way,” Lone Ranger interrupts his thoughts, “To ask a question, I mean.” His voice is definitely huskier than before, if that is even possible.

Dean nods. 

“I know.”

It’s quiet between them for a minute or so, while Dean drinks his beer and Lone Ranger doesn’t move, but also doesn’t stop looking at him. 

“You didn’t think I would come back, did you?” Dean asks eventually.

“No, not really.” Lone Ranger shakes his head.

“Why?” Dean asks, but Lone Ranger only smiles.

“That’s another question. It’s my turn now,” he tells Dean. “What are you afraid of, Batman?”

He puts his hand on Dean’s knee when Dean fails to answer, but he waits, patiently.

_ What is he afraid of? _

Lone Ranger isn’t the first one to ask him this. 

_ Why are you so afraid, Dean? _ Castiel had asked him, his blue eyes burning into him. He had been the first, but he hadn’t been the last to ask him that. Over the years, guys, some annoyed, some simply curious had posed this question, but Dean had never answered it truthfully.

_ I’m not afraid, I just don’t swing this way _ .

Only that isn’t the truth. 

He remembers his Dad’s disgust at finding out Dean was hanging out with a gay kid in high school. 

_ Don’t let him rub off on you _ , he told Dean. And the shame Dean was experiencing when he realized that his feelings for Castiel weren’t entirely platonic, was almost unbearable. After Castiel, Dean threw himself into relationship after relationship, never anything too serious, but his girlfriends preoccupied him until he forgot about the blue eyed boy, until he forgot about his fear, at least for a while. 

Then, after his Dad had moved away for good, after there was nobody left to impress (he doubted his brother would have any problem with it, and neither would Uncle Bobby), for a while he told himself that he didn’t want it. He didn’t want to be queer; to be straight was perfectly fine. He likes women, he really does, and so he dated Lisa for a couple of years.

He was happy. They were happy together. But still.

He confided in Lisa eventually, told her about Cas, about his own doubts when it came to his sexual orientation. He never really planned to act on anything, but Lisa didn’t want anything to do with it. 

“I don’t want to be here when you realize you’re gay,” she said, and no matter how often he told her that he loved her, she wouldn’t change her mind.

“I’m so proud of you,” Charlie told him later.

So he ended up here, single and halfway out of the closet and having promised Charlie to finally be true to himself.

_ I’m afraid of myself, of what it does to me _ , Dean thinks, because what if Lisa was right? What if he will find out that he’s gay? 

No. Charlie told him about bi-phobia and how straight women generally tend to find bisexual men unattractive. 

_ And so what? Sexuality is fluid, Dean-o. You will find your label. You can change your label. And if you don’t want a label at all? That’s fine, too.  _

“I’ve never…,” is what leaves his mouth eventually. “This is new to me.” He points between them and makes some vague gesture.

“Is it something you want to experience?” Lone Ranger asks and slowly withdraws his hand from Dean’s knee. Dean grabs it before he gets too far away.

“It’s my turn to ask a question,” he whispers.

He turns around and finally meets the other man’s masked eyes.

“I would like to - is it okay to kiss you?” he stutters and underneath his shirt he feels the hair on his arms rise. 

Lone Ranger nods, smiling, and suddenly he is so close that Dean can see the rough stitches at the seams of the guy’s mask and the three day old stubble on his chin.

Jumping it is, so he leans in. 

It’s affirming and terrifying at the same time when the man’s rough lips crash onto his and he feels a hand pressing against the small of his back and another one on his neck, caressing his short hair. The man smells like ozone and aftershave and when he opens his mouth Dean can hardly taste anything but beer. It should bother him, he thinks for a hot second when he tentatively puts his hand on the man’s biceps, that Lone Ranger was at least his equal, strength-wise, but the thought is erased the moment the guy’s fingers further dig into his hair. 

Dean is sweating underneath his mask and motions to take it off, but Lone Ranger catches his wrist before he can do so. 

“Let’s stay mysteries for a little while longer,” he mutters and goes on to kiss along Dean’s jaw until all Dean can do is keep himself from moaning.

They break apart eventually, flushed and hot and Dean stares at the man in wonder.

“Fuck,” Dean mutters, but when Lone Ranger puts a hand on his arm, he nevertheless leans into his touch. His heart is beating loudly and fast and he has the urge to flex his fingers and they feel the same as they always have. Hesitating, he touches his lips, brushing his fingertip along the edges. His lips are hot, swollen, but the same. It’s ridiculous, he thinks, but he breathes out a long breath he didn’t know he was holding and when suddenly a wave of relief overcomes him he starts giggling like an idiot.

“Are you alright?” Lone Ranger asks him, his fingers trailing up and down Dean’s arm in reassurance. His head is cocked again in confusion and he looks at Dean like a weird, otherworldly creature who doesn't understand human emotions.

“I thought I’d… hell, I have no idea what I thought would happen,” Dean tells him with a grin. “I’m okay. This was-”

Instead of telling him with words, he leans forward and soon his lips meet Lone Ranger’s again. This time it’s almost gentle and for a few short moments their lips are the only things that exist in Dean’s world, their little gasps and moans the only sounds he can hear.

“This is nice,” Lone Ranger hums, his voice velvety and dark. “I haven’t had this in a while.”

“Yeah, yeah, it’s-” Dean can’t quite say it. Admitting out loud that he enjoys kissing the other man seems like a last barrier he is not quite ready to take down. Instead he leans forward to kiss him again, hoping that the enthusiasm he puts into the kiss translates right. It’s fucking nice, no, it’s great, that’s what it is. It’s awesome. 

“Maybe we  _ should _ take off our masks,” Lone Ranger says as he brushes along Dean’s jaw but Dean grins and shakes his head. 

“No, come on, just a few more questions,” Dean says with a smirk.

“Hmm, alright.” 

Dean notices that Lone Ranger’s hand still hasn’t left his forearm and reaches out to the man as well until he finds his hand and places his own on top of it. He doesn’t quite dare to take it yet and he feels nervous and excited in a way he probably hasn’t felt in a decade. 

“When did you find out you were- uh, you know?” Dean asks him, blushing. 

“I know?” Lone Ranger says with a slight grin. 

“Gay,” Dean says through gritted teeth and he feels his face flush again.

“I can’t really pin-point it. Probably from the moment I developed something like sexual attraction.” Lone Ranger pauses. “I was something of a late bloomer, so my first real crush was in junior year of high school. We were friends - unlikely friends, but for some reason we were almost inseparable for a while. Unfortunately, I wore my heart on my sleeve, so when I developed feelings for him that were more romantic than platonic in nature, I told him. He didn’t quite react the way I expected him to.”

“I’m sorry,” Dean says and suddenly he feels like his 16 year old self again, confused, angry and scared. Back then he told himself he was disgusted, but in reality he admired Castiel’s bravery. He was jealous, that was it. Jealous that Castiel had decided to be his true self, over and over again, and that Dean just… couldn’t. 

“What’s a gay teenage experience without falling in love with a straight boy?” Lone Ranger says. “It’s been so long ago. I can barely remember.”

Something tells Dean that it’s not quite the truth.

“Of course, for some time after that I felt ashamed. It was the first time I actually realized I was different, the first time that I was confronted with the painful reality that not everyone would accept me for who I was. I wanted to change, to be normal, and it took quite a while until I was fully accepting of who I was.” Lone Ranger looks at him and reaches for his face. Dean closes his eyes when he feels the other man’s hand resting on his cheek until it drops back down on his knee.

“Are you ashamed of yourself? Of what you are, or aren’t?” the man asks.

“I know I shouldn’t be,” Dean mutters. “It shouldn’t be a big deal, I mean, I only found out that I find men attractive, I’m still me, you know? But my whole life I tried to meet expectations people had of me. My girlfriend broke up with me when I told her that I didn’t think I was straight. My Dad, he would always say to me to take care of Sammy when he was away, and when I failed to do that he dropped us off at his friend’s place. And although I know that it was probably for the best, I still feel like I’ve let people down.

Lone Ranger stares at him for a moment.

“You’re brother’s name is Sammy?” he asks, his voice barely audible.

“Yeah, I mean, he prefers Sam, but I still call him Sammy every now and again. Why you asking?”

Lone Ranger shakes his head. 

“Oh, it’s- it’s nothing,” he tells Dean and then hurries to add, “It’s normal, you know? Questioning your sexuality, realizing you’re not straight, it’s nothing to be ashamed of. And neither is realizing you’re not the person people expect you to be. We always deserve someone who accepts us the way we are,” Lone Ranger says, his hand still on Dean’s knee. 

Castiel comes to Dean’s mind again and he asks himself whether there was someone there for him back in high school, back when Dean completely fucked up. Or whether he was all alone, with no one to support him. Dean never talked to him again, although he wanted to, but he was too afraid. 

“How… how did he react? The boy who you had a crush on, I mean,” he asks. Did he also continue to ignore Lone Ranger for the remainder of the year, just like Dean ignored Cas? Did he also not dare to look him in the eye anymore?

Lone Ranger doesn’t answer immediately. He hums and looks at the stars above them.

“I think there’s more you need to know before I can tell you how he reacted,” he says, his voice low. 

Dean nods. “Sure.” 

Lone Ranger doesn’t look at him when he starts talking, his eyes still fixed on the night sky. 

“Well, as I told you, we were friends. I was out already, which didn’t exactly make me one of the cool kids - imagine a scrawny 16 year old with glasses and nerdy hobbies. The other kids called me names, well, except for him. He was on the football team, popular, I never dared to hope he would ever be aware I existed, let alone talk to me, but he did. One day he came to me and told me he was sorry that his teammates made fun of me. And somehow we started talking, he told me about his fucked up family and I told him about mine and all of a sudden we started to spend time together until we were basically inseparable.”

Dean is frozen in disbelief next to the man. His mind fills the gaps of Lone Ranger’s story, he remembers Castiel’s ridiculous glasses, remembers afternoons spent together, playing video games, talking about absolutely anything. Castiel always had at least one book with him everywhere he went, and sometimes Dean would just listen to Castiel reading out loud. He remembers watching obscure movies together and sneaking out at night to take one of Uncle Bobby’s cars for a drive. Could it be…

“I developed a crush of course,” Lone Ranger continues. “He was undeniably handsome, and there was something about him… on the outside he was cool and careless, just like the other jocks, but I soon learned that he was incredibly caring, that his macho demeanor was nothing more than a mask. He was sensitive, insecure, we weren’t actually that different from each other. For a couple of months or so, everything was perfect. It didn’t matter anymore that there were kids calling me names at school. I had a friend. A great friend, who was there for me, who defended me. So it was inevitable that my crush grew into something more. I fell in love with him and for a while I was even foolish enough to think that he could feel the same.”

_ You weren’t foolish _ , Dean catches himself thinking but it can’t be him, can it? It would be too much of a coincidence, too unlikely. 

Lone Ranger sighs. “I like grand gestures, so I waited until a few weeks before prom to tell him. In my head it would play out perfectly - I would tell him about my feelings and ask him to go to prom with me and he would say yes, of course he would. I had noticed all these little things, long looks, the way he managed to always have a hand on my shoulder or my knee, like it was the most natural thing. So there I was, waiting for him after football practice. For some reason I didn’t want to do this in private - I may have a penchant for the dramatic, so there I was, with a single flower in hand - a lily with dots on its petals that reminded me of his freckles - and when he arrived I told him we needed to talk. ‘I see you the way you are, not just the way you pretend to be’, I said. I told him that I saw how he cared, how he loved. That over the past couple of months of our friendship, I found that we shared a bond.”

_ A profound bond, _ Dean thinks. 

“I think I even called it a ‘profound bond’.”

Dean feels a tear running down his cheek underneath the mask, because there’s no doubt now, it’s Castiel. He wants to tell him, wants to finally tear off the stupid mask, but Cas still doesn’t look at him and Dean finds that his hands are shaking too much. 

“I never got to ask him to go to prom with me,” Castiel continues. “When I told him I loved him he asked me to stop and when I didn’t, he told me that I shouldn’t talk to him again and got into his car and left. I just sat there, in the parking lot where his car had been, for hours. I… I guess it still hurts when I think about it - I was sure he would talk to me again eventually, I waited for weeks, but he didn’t even look at me.” 

Castiel stops talking in order to take a deep breath and he scratches the back of his head.

“Anyway. I’m sorry I talked for so-”

He turns around to look at Dean, who has finally managed to push the mask from his face. His face feels hot and sweaty, and his cheeks are wet from the tears, so he attempts to wipe his face dry with the back of his hand, but it’s of no avail.

“I’m sorry,” Dean mutters. “I’m so sorry, Cas.”

Dean gets up so quickly he almost loses balance. He can’t do this. He needs to find Charlie, needs to leave -

“It really is you,” Castiel mutters, a smile on his lips. 

A  _ smile _ ?

“Cas, I-” Dean starts, not sure what to say. He’s still standing there awkwardly, unsure whether he should stay or get the hell outta here, waiting for Cas to start yelling at him or telling him to leave, or whatever. But Cas is only looking at him patiently with a slightly tilted head. He looks so much like the boy he was friends with. How could Dean have ever had any doubts about Lone Ranger’s identity?

“Dean,” Cas starts eventually and Dean is so lost in thought that Cas’ voice startles him, “I think we should talk.”

“Okay?” Dean mutters and sits down again, numb. His heart is pounding incredibly fast and he wants to avert his gaze but can’t stop looking at Cas, whose hair is still wild and unruly, his eyes as blue as he remembers. He looks nothing like the scrawny kid he was friends with, but at the same time it’s undoubtedly him.

“I need you to know that I didn’t realize it was you until just now,” Dean tells Castiel as soon as he finds his voice again.

“I had no idea until you mentioned your brother,” Cas says.

“Oh.” They stare at each other for a few moments.

“I always hoped to see you again some day,” Cas tells him eventually. 

“I thought you would hate me.” Dean mumbles, fidgeting with the cuffs of his hoodie. 

“Because you rejected me?”

“Because I behaved like the biggest asshole. I didn’t just reject you. Our friendship was over because of  _ me _ .”

Castiel’s arms find their way around Dean all of a sudden, and when the other man buries his face into Dean’s shoulder, Dean is almost overwhelmed with how close they are. For an amount of time that’s equally too long and too short, they are hugging each other, and Dean slowly feels the tension go away.

“I wanted to talk to you,” Dean says eventually, when he pulls away. ”I tried to work up the courage to talk to you again, but at first I was too afraid and then after summer break, you were gone. When I realized you must have changed schools, I just wanted to turn back time. Get a chance to say what I actually wanted to say. But I was so afraid. Afraid of-'' Dean shakes his head. He doesn’t even know what he was afraid of exactly, because if he’s completely honest, there were too many things. 

  
  


Castiel looks at him and lifts his hand to brush his fingers against Dean’s face. He says nothing, no ‘it’s okay’, or ‘I forgive you’, but his hand is warm against Dean’s cheek and Dean closes his eyes, melting into the touch.

“I always thought that maybe, some day, we could talk about what happened that day,” Cas says eventually. 

“Me too.”

“If you could talk to my 16 year old self again, right there in the parking lot. Without consequences. What would you have done differently?” Cas asks him, his hand still on Dean’s face.

“You really wanna do this?” Dean asks.

“See it as my last question,” Cas replies with a soft smile.

Dean runs a hand through his hair, thinking back to his teenage self. 

“You never met my dad, right?”

Castiel shakes his head.

“He’s… difficult. He’s never been a good father but I’ve come to terms with it by now. At some point in the last decade or so I realized that no matter what I do, it’ll never be enough in his eyes. Now I know there’s so many people who are there for me. Who support me. Who - who love me. I didn’t know that back then. I thought maybe everything would be alright if I was the son he wanted me to be.”

Looking down, Dean grabs Cas’ hands and holds them between them. Cas gently squeezes back, his thumbs brushing over the top of Dean’s hands. 

“If it wasn’t for him, I would have reacted differently. I would have allowed myself to react differently. But that day he was supposed to come by and I was only thinking about what he would say, how he would react. And then I saw the other students in the parking lot, and only thought about what if anyone saw something, what if anyone said something, and… I wasn’t ready. ” 

He takes a deep breath and suddenly, he feels something snap. Like breaking free from restraints Dean has struggled against for years. He doesn’t quite dare to look Cas in the eye, so he locks his eyes on their linked hands instead.

“You meant so much to me, Cas,” Dean tells him and enjoys the adrenaline rushing through him. “I couldn’t stop thinking about you. I fantasized about kissing you all the time. That one time when we watched this weird Japanese horror movie and you grabbed my hand, I didn’t want you to let go anymore. I… didn’t realize it, it took me almost 15 years to finally, really get it. If it wasn’t for my Dad, maybe I would have realized it sooner. Maybe I would have even told you. Cas, I’m pretty sure I was in love with you back then.”

“Dean, I-”

Dean looks up into Castiel’s teary eyes. Cas lets go of his hands again and this time brings both of them to his face, cupping Dean’s cheeks. 

“I-” Cas starts again with a small smile. “I’m so sorry, Dean.”

“What for?”

“Of course, you could have reacted differently, but you’re not the only one who made a mistake. The parking lot? What was I thinking? I should have waited until we were in the car at least, or we could have gone somewhere else, but I was excited and too sure of myself and didn’t take into consideration what it would mean for you.”

“It’s okay,” Dean says and covers Castiel’s hands with his. 

“Yes, it’s okay, I suppose,” Cas replies. “We were teenagers.”

“Fuck, I really didn’t expect this evening to go like this,” Dean mutters. 

“Is this a bad thing?” Cas asks him, with a crooked smile.

“I suppose not.”

They are almost nose to nose, Dean realizes. If he moved forward an inch or so - as if Castiel could read his mind, he presses his lips onto Dean’s and Dean closes his eyes. The kiss is sweet, almost chaste, but then Cas opens his mouth and Dean deepens their kiss and when they break apart, Dean feels a grin form on his face.

It’s quiet between them and Dean hears a song playing inside - he doesn’t know the song but it sounds sweet and is surprisingly slow. 

“So… you wanted to ask me out for prom, yeah? Means I owe you a dance,” he mutters. 

“Now?” Castiel replies with an arched eyebrow.

“Yeah, now.” With a broad grin, he gets up so that he can bow in front of Cas and he reaches out a hand to him.

“May I have this dance, Castiel Novak?” 

A deep, full laugh escapes Castiel when he takes Dean’s hand and they walk to the door that leads back inside, and this time, Dean isn’t afraid of anyone looking at them. He realizes he isn’t afraid of what anyone of the remaining party guests might think, with Cas there beside him. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> If you want to join a fun group of Destiel loving people, go check out the [Profound Bond Discord server](https://discord.gg/profoundbond/).
> 
> You can also find me on [tumblr!](https://honeywolf.tumblr.com/)


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